Oracle Blog

Thursday Jul 19, 2007

Here's another funny thing about revolutions: once you're caught
up in it, you can't believe that everyone isn't equally passionate
about it.

To point: I was spending concentrated time with my extended family last
week, none of whom are in the high tech industry. Lawyers, health care
providers, finance folks, sales professionals representing
organizations as diverse as non-profit organizations to big
conglomerates. Ages 23 to 85. But no high tech. As we were
catching up with each other and I was sharing our work at Sun on
community building and social media, my family's reaction caught me off
guard.

Lots of curiosity. Lots of interest. Lots of
questions. But remarkably little hands on experience. And no real
understanding of why Web 2.0 is significant to business, to communities
and to culture.

It was a healthy reminder that we, too, can get caught up in our own
ivory towers. It was also a boost to see eyes light up as we
explored the subject and how it could impact their lives. We
talked for hours.

One result is that I'm now working with my brother-in-law to introduce
how social media can help the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, a non-profit
organization, use the network to better connect donors with recipients,
and how to connect philanthropists with each other to unite behind common
causes such as education, health care and other areas supported by the
Federation. Oh, and how the network can help the Jewish
Federation build more collaboration internally.

He's on fire with ideas, and I'm smiling ear-to-ear.
Revolutionist and evangelist - not how I thought I'd be spending my,
uh, late middle age years. Whodathunkit?

Monday Jul 09, 2007

At the Sun Social Mashup that I spoke of in my last post, we got into a
vigorous discussion over the veracity of wikis versus print. Some
participants pointed out that some pretty big untruths had been outed
from Wikipedia, and that wikis should be viewed with caution because
the information may not be reliable.

And print is reliable? Hmmm, I beg to differ.

While there is great comfort in holding a book or magazine in your
hands, adding "weight" to your research, the fact is that no media is
exempt from fiction parading as fact. Remember the brouhaha over
James Frey's book, "A
Million Little Pieces"? Was it a factual
recount of his efforts to become clean or was it a historical novel,
with some fact and some fiction mixed in? (I found it a great read, by
the way, regardless of what literary license was taken.) Want
another example? How about the books that claim the Holocaust
never occurred? Or instruction manuals that are so poorly written
that they are misleading or just plain wrong?

Now those who were arguing that print is more reliable talked about the
fact that respectable publications have editors who lend a critical eye
to the content and, if they're doing their job well, uncover
inconsistencies and shaky information. I can't argue with that,
and in fact the growing reluctance of too many publications to invest
in fact-checkers makes me uneasy. The web does leave us without
official editors and replaces them with passionate participants who
likely have an ax to grind.

Still.... does the light of day expose fraud and bad
information? James Surowiecki's book, "The Wisdom of Crowds,"
reviews how a diverse, independent audience of thinkers can uncover the
facts and make sure good information surfaces. My first reaction
to this argument, I admit, was that "the wisdom of crowds" sure
sounded like an oxymoron to me. Paul Ginsparg of Cornell
University put in
more eloquently: "The problem with the global village is all the global
village idiots." But when you actually read Surowiecki's book, you see
that under the right conditions, the crowd can actually provide a
powerful - and accurate - counterpoint to the thoughts of a single
person.

Who do you trust? Information is only as good as its
source. As a writer who has been in the communications game for
more years than I like to think about, I know that more eyes can create
higher quality - different people catch mistakes that slip right by the
writer. And that, of course, is the beauty of wikis.

Then again, only a fool believes everything they read without
independent thinking and review. Let the reader beware.

Friday Jun 29, 2007

Revolutions are generally poorly funded, chaotic, messy affairs.
By definition, they are grass roots. There are moments of glory
and moments of ignominy. And the outcome is not guaranteed.

Revolution is on my mind, not only because of the July 4th holiday here
in the states but because of a very interesting meeting we hosted here
at Sun yesterday - our first Sun Social Networking Mashup. Forty folks
joined us, both in person and virtually, as we came together to talk
about how we can move the company forward, pushing the envelope further
and further. Communications, software, marketing, labs, the field
and many other groups were represented.

Is revolution an overstatement? Not at all. Our session
demonstrated many of the characteristics of an uprising - grass
roots, little funding, lots of egos (heck, mine alone took up two
seats!), lots of ideas, agreement, disagreement, debate, discussion,
and, well, some chaos. What a blast it was!

So in this brave new world, our leaders will learn that they must earn
their audiences, much as bloggers do. A title will get you a
first listen, but not necessarily a second. Messages needs to be
sharp, meaningful and relevant - the audience has moved from victim to
volunteer. Communicators don't get off unchanged either. We
will find that "managing the message" is a thing of the past. The
genie is out of the bottle, and the smart communicator needs to find
out how to facilitate the process, not fight it. And life for the
citizenry? Overwhelming, involving, self-selected.

John Dutra, our CTO for IT, pointed out that 40 people can't change the
world. But 40 people can convert another 40 people, who can
convert another 40 people, and so it goes. In fact, there are
already thousands of people at Sun who have joined the revolution - now
the question becomes how we can use the revolution to form new
communities, to collaborate with people who we might never have thought
to team with before.

Mistakes, missteps, collisions are all a part of this. How
wonderful to work for a company that embraces this messy process.
For in that way we are a state-sanctioned revolution, chartered by our
leadership to leap ahead, assume nothing and make the new world ours.

Monday Jun 11, 2007

When our daughter, Carolyn, was a new baby, I used my limited craft
skills to create a little human faces mobile to hang over her
crib. Aside from the fact that my husband claimed that the faces
looked more like demons than humans and worried I was traumatizing our
firstborn, Carolyn stared and cooed at the faces endlessly. This
is hardly a testament to my craft skills - it's a fact that babies are
wired to recognize and react to human faces.

So I can't say I was terribly surprised to see the results of a recent
survey at Sun that showed 61 percent of our employees still prefer to
get information from their manager. Social networking makes it
easier for managers to reach out to employees and do much of what
employees like - provide context to the information, cast it in terms
of what matters to the manager, the employee and their group, and just
talk about it. Emoticons make it possible to humanize the
interaction, sharing feelings and being more genuine.

But there's still something about face-to-face communication that is
pretty impactful. Consider a seminar I attended last week on
social
media and communication. At the session, we saw a demo of a
virtual world that was used for company meetings. Part of it was way
cool. Virtual meeting places, personalized avatars, interfacing with
the
real world through a window to a physical conference room...great
stuff. In fact, the
person speaking to us was from Europe and joining us through his avatar
on a big screen
in the conference room.

But. I found the experience devoid of emotion and not terribly
engaging.
Why? Because I was looking at a face that didn't smile, wince, roll
eyes,
frown, blink or show any kind of reaction at all. Any expressions
that came through from body positioning (fold, unfold arms, etc.) were
consciously initiated, taking the authenticity factor away. We
saw what he wanted us to see, not who he really is. I couldn't
relate to him.

So while I find virtual worlds intriguing, I can't say I find them
engaging. And I think we'll have to do a better job on the
engagement side so that the worlds are not just an intellectual
exercise or a video game. Or I think lots of us will lose
interest in them pretty quickly.

We're pioneers together in this world. And because communication
is at the heart of our humanity, what we do in shaping this world will
in turn shape ourselves and our children - how we share, how we
relate. What an opportunity we have. And what a privilege.

Tuesday May 22, 2007

Of all the fascinating cultural changes that technology is bringing us,
the new opportunities for artists are among the most mind-boggling, at
least for me. Musicians, of course, have been in the forefront of
technology for a long time. Recording equipment is the Gutenberg
press equivalent for musicians, making it possible to save, copy
and
share music. But visual artists haven't had this level of technlogical
disruption available to them. As Joni Mitchell says, when asked
to do an encore, "No one ever said to Van Gogh, 'Hey, man!
Do another Starry Night! He did it, he finished it and that
was that'"(capture on her brilliant album, Miles
of Aisles).

But Web 2.0 is an equal opportunity door opener. Three stories to
share with you that you may find interesting...

Bringing the Gallery to My Front Door

Do you know where and how I buy a fair amount of artwork? Well,
given that I'm not
a billionaire, my tastes are eclectic and I love the feeling of living
in an art gallery, I'm always on the hunt for new artists who do
interesting work. Not so easy to fit into a busy life.
Until I was introduced to Hang Gallery in San Francisco. Hang
represents new, undiscovered artists.
When they had a gallery in Palo Alto, it was a fun (and dangerous)
place for me to drop in. But once they closed that location and
consolidated everything in the city, the convenience was gone.
Until I discovered their website.
Which is fabulous. I can
easily browse the collection, see what's new, read about artists,
contact them, rent or buy works. I've probably picked up a dozen
pieces from them (remember - these are new artists, so you can pick up
interesting stuff for very little money).

Art for Sale

So there's a very big movement these days on eBay, centered on
"a-painting-a-day." Katherine Tyrrell blogs about this here.
She comments that smart artists who want to make a living from their
craft have become smart business people and smart web users. Want
to buy a piece of artwork but don't have a lot of dough? You can
bid on these paintings that usually start well under $100. The
quality varies with artist, and beauty, after all, is in the eye of the
beholder. Browsing is free, and you can be tempted to get
involved for not much money. BTW, Katherine gives some good
advice to anyone looking to use the web to build a business.
Little bonus for her readers...

Making and Marketing Music

Isn't it ironic that at a time that music is ubiquitous that the music
industry is in such deep doo doo? How could an industry run
itself so poorly that it has managed to completely miss the
revolution? Instead of jumping in, they resisted and are paying a
very high price. Editorial comments aside, my colleague, Dave
Viotti, brought to my attention this article from the New York
Times. Its title, Sex,
Drugs and Updating your Blog, alone made
it worth looking at, but its author, Clive Thompson, went beyond the
title to tell a story well worth reading. Thompson writes of a
musician, Jonathan Coulton, who has used the web to build an audience,
sell out concerts, sell music - all without an agent. And there's
more...his fans have become part of his music:

"Coulton welcomes his fans’ avid attention; indeed, he relies on his
fans in an almost symbiotic way. When he couldn’t perform a guitar solo
for “Shop Vac,” a glittery pop tune he had written about suburban angst
— on his blog, he cursed his “useless sausage fingers” — Coulton asked
listeners to record their own attempts, then held an online vote and
pasted the winning riff into his tune."

Talk about the Participation Age...and about breaking open walls to let
the world in.